This is the city: Los Angeles, California. I work here. I'm an ex-mayor. Los Angeles is a magnet for people from all over the world. Some of them run for public office. Inevitably some of them stray from the golden rule and rule for those that have the gold. That's when I go to work. My name is Yorty. I'm a dead pol.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Saturday Thread: Exporting Excrement

How much? According to the San Jose Mercury News, "enough to fill a toilet the size of an Olympic swimming pool every four days."

I didn't even know they made 'em that big!

So, long story short, Kern County's voters said, "Thanks, but -- so to speak -- no thanks. Keep your . . . you know . . . to yourselves." The City of L.A. has graciously responded with a lawsuit to keep the river of poo flowing.

What does our City do with the do? The City spreads the human waste all "over a 4,700-acre farm the city bought for nearly $10 million about 15 miles south of Bakersfield."

Say it with me, "EEEEEEEWWWWWWWW!!!!" Da-uhm! Talk about "not in my backyard!" How bad a neighbor are we?!

You people need to think about things like this when you advocate cramming more and more people into our city limits. Think about the logistics of ever-increasing population density. Put another way: if people will just move to Bakersfield instead of L.A., we can eliminate -- so to speak -- the middleman.

23 Comments:

Anonymous said:

This is certainly not the ideal solution, but be aware that this is highly sanitized and "cleaned up" ... poo ... it does not spread germs or disease. It's fertilizer. And it's better than what we were doing 10-15 years ago -- dumping it straight into the ocean. At least Kern County gets paid for "hosting it," and it is used for adding nutrients to the soil.

But, of course, if I was Kern County I wouldn't like the idea of LA sh*tting on me, either.

What we should be doing instead of dumping it in Kern is harnessing the power of this "biomass" and using it to be converted to energy, chemicals or ethanol. Let's work towards greater sustainability.

They should flush the pieces of shit like John Mack and the rest of the idiots Antonio chose for the police commission. Its a tie between them and the Clowncil members of who's the dumbest.lavoice.org

Board of Police Critics, er, Commissioners, Strikes Again The Board of Police Commissioners, (BOPC) which really should be the Association of Second Guessers and Monday Mornng Quarterbacks (ASGMMQ) has produced a raft of reviews of use of force incidents, complete with the usual gems of anti-cop bias, arrogance and self-puffery. Unfortunately, they are offered up with such disorganization that it is hard to tell which is old and which is new. http://www.lapdonline.org/police_commission/content_basic_view/9167

...According to John Mack, et al...- When somebody points to a Silver Lexus and says "that guy has a gun, he just robbed me," officers should stop and chat with the fellow, not immediately follow the escaping violent felon. (77th Div, 2/17/05) ...

- When the chap flees, hits five cars and flips the Lexus, then squirms out and starts running, an officer should holster his weapon before apprehending an actively resistsing suspect, not strike him in the head with it. No, one should not assume that a suspect who is fighting and was reported to have a gun actually has a gun. This is not an acceptable use of force according to three of the commissioners, and this officer is now subject to firing. In other words, this officer should have bet his life that this suspect did not have a gun. It turn out he did not. He'd tossed it a few feet away.

- When someone fights off two officers then threatens to kill himself with a knife, assisting officers should have a talk about their plans before hitting him with bean bags and a taser. (Of course, one can just see the Times headline: Officers hold meeting while man slits his own throat.") (Van Nuys, 5/19/05).

-But, then there's my favorite: When talking about an incident from the night before, make sure you have a supervisor handy. (That's right guys, we trust you with guns, but not to talk). And, further more, when driving toward a guy with an AK-47, talk about your plans before shooting the thug. (SouthEast)

In all the cases I reviewed, the commissioners found that officers required re-training and used questionable tactics in every single incident. Apparrently, the shootings of officers Ripatti and Tuck have taught commissioner Mack et al nothing about the fraction-of-a-moment dangers of police work.

I pray it doesn't take a funeral for them to figure it out. Unfortunately, I fear not even a funeral would be sufficient to break through the bias, arrogance and pre-conceived naivite of this bunch.

She claimed Schwarzenegger fondled her breast during a December 2000 interview in London and that his staff later damaged her reputation by contending she encouraged his behavior.

Figures released last year showed Schwarzenegger piled up legal bills of more than $500,000 to defend himself and campaign aides in libel cases related to groping allegations made during the recall election.

No surprise that you scribes would have article on the "KENNEDY REPUBLICAN" settling the lawsuit against him. Yet, I found compelling the article on the "LEFT OF CENTER" teacher suing LAUSD for retaliation.His crime ? Advocating, err, teaching critical thinking on the Iraq War. Reflecting back to my days at Lincoln High School. Teachers were so anti-Reagan you thought that he was the reason that you didn't have ketchup to go with your free school burger. Reading further, you learn how librarian Kitty Kroger banned militay literature from the library. (IS THIS CENSERSHIP BOYS AND GIRLS ?)Alberto Gutierrez, teacher claiming retaliation, once was affiliated with a North Hills gang. He is known to expouse a "left of center" political views, claim that then- Principal Jose Luis Rodriguez supported the war and opposes any other opinions. Parents have complain about gutierrez requiring student to attend a viewing of the movie Fahrenheit 9/11 at a cafe in Slymar. Now lets stop to ponder the real issue here. You have educators who are advocating their personal beliefs and the Principal is in the right to address this misconduct. One also has to wonder how this relates to the pending Mayor Takeover of LAUSD. Giving more say to the Teachers Unions in regards to the curriculum only will foster advocation of issues compare to thought and discussion.

You are right on. We should be using the biomass, converting it and doing our share (as the second largest city in the United States), however small of a share it is, toward ending global warming.

But no, that is far too progressive for this city. Here we have to focus on education. Is LAUSD within the power of our mayor? No. Is converting our own sludge to energy instead of shipping it out within the power of our mayor? Yes.

What happened to all of those excellent environmental appointments the mayor was going to make? He made them and we haven't heard one word from any of them since.

I guess they're probably focusing on the environment around the schools right now.

Yes, I could indeed research it myself. But part of the point of this blog, from my perspective, is for us to work together to accomplish more than we could individually.

The person who suggested biomass may have already researched it -- hence his or her suggestion. So rather than spending hours re-inventing the wheel, why not have that person share with the rest of us? That's reasonable, isn't it?

It's kind of like when one of us has, say, some experience with legal issues, that person can explain an item that would otherwise take hours -- or years -- for someone else to figure out.

And this is something about which everyone of every ideology should care, don't you think? Not everything has to be a source of antagonism.

This information has been available to those who think and those who "lead" for years. The scientists who are so distained these days have known and invented innumerable ways to stop the pollution and to use the glut. Apparently their time has come.

And you are right, Walter, some of us are leaders, some kabitzers, and some researchers. Let each find his perfect place and work together to undo the stupidities that have been done unto us over the last 50 years in Los Angeles, throughout the United States, and the entire World.

As for the world population hitting 6 billion, yeah, I think that would be an okay place to stop. As more of the world industrializes -- China, in particular -- and does so without pollution controls, things could get pretty ugly.

One thing that has improved since I moved here in the 1980's, however, is the air, which is pretty amazing when you think about it. We have many many more cars, but emission control regulations have really made a difference.

Thr air may be improving where you are, but not down in the Port of Los Angeles area. The port is booming, which is good economically for the region, but there are serious environmental drawbacks as well. Time will tell if Freeman et al actually accomplish anything meaningful in this regard, but (pardon the pun), I'm not holding my breath. If you're not overly familiar with the harbor, you should drive down and take a look around sometime. I think you'll find it interesting.

It is my understanding that the particulate matter in the Los Angeles air is increasing, because China's pollution is beginning to drift all the way across the Pacific. Does anyone know anything about that?

Hi, there. I'm the 11:38 pm poster who just logged back in to find myself tasked with sharing biomass info.

I have done a good amount of research on it, the best paper being one that has not yet been released from a legislative office of research. But the overall gist of it all is that these technologies are still in their infancy here in California and the United States. Unfortunately, other countries are far ahead of us on this. But there is movement in the legislature on this topic (though slow) and people are realizing that we need to rethink how we deal with the amount of waste / trash that we produce. Los Angeles also has begun instituting work towards this end, both with the Council (through the leadership of Smith) and the Mayor have committed to working towards better using our waste stream. (and no, people, I work for neither office).

In a related topic, Japan, Israel and Germany have all done away with landfills and through "conversion technologies" convert the majority of their trash into energy or chemicals. This includes their "biomass" trash. However, they also have a much cleaner and smaller waste stream because they also have higher recycling percentages and stronger package design laws.

Now, one of the main roadblocks in this whole thing is that, again, these technologies are in their infancy and there is not enough hard data proving that in the conversion of this trash - there is some, but environmentalists aren't fully convinced. Many are very concerned that we not taking one problem (landfilling) and exchanging it for another (air pollution). But I have the feeling that environmentalists and pro conversion technology types are coming together to really figure out what to do. Because we can't keep operating the way we are.

The Mayor's office recently co-hosted a very interesting conference with Councilmember Smith and a couple of legislators to discuss what we as LA should be doing with our trash and start discussing the possibilities of use of the "carbon-based" trash to produce ethanol, chemicals, electricity, etc. It looked like about 200 people were there to discuss progressive ideas about what to do with southern California's trash and to see stakeholders who run the gamut of positions on this topic come together and all admit that we need to bring new solutions.